Work out what your card payments cost in a month: a percentage of takings plus fixed cents per transaction and monthly fees, and what you keep after fees.
Enter one month of card takings (the total customers paid by card, including GST), the percentage fee on your quote or statement, any fixed fee per transaction, the number of transactions and your other monthly fees. The calculator works out:
Worked example (illustrative rates, not a provider's price): a café takes $40,000 by card in a month across 900 transactions, on a plan quoted at 1.2% plus 5 cents, with $55 of terminal rental and account fees. Transaction fees are $40,000 × 1.2% = $480, plus 900 × $0.05 = $45, so $525. Takings after card costs are $40,000 − $525 − $55 = $39,420. The all-in effective rate is ($525 + $55) ÷ $40,000 = 1.45%, higher than the 1.2% headline because of the fixed cents and monthly fees.
To check a single sale, set the takings to the sale amount, the count to 1 and other fees to 0.
Limits: real cost-plus plans charge different rates for debit, credit, premium, commercial and foreign cards and for online payments. Run the calculator once per card type with the rates from your statement and add the results. Since 1 October 2026 businesses cannot recover these fees through a surcharge on eftpos, Mastercard or Visa cards, so the net figure is what you keep. See the monthly cost worked example.
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